The Girl Who Became Queen

When Babylon carried the people away, not all of them came home again. Years later, after Persia had swallowed Babylon, there were Jewish families living all over the Persian empire — a hundred and twenty-seven provinces of it, from India to Ethiopia — a long way from Jerusalem, with a king over them who had never heard of them. And this is what happened to them there.

In the city of Susa there was a Jewish man named Mordecai, who worked in the king’s palace. And one night he had a dream that frightened him: noise and thunder and earthquake, and two great serpents rearing up to fight, and every nation on earth getting ready to make war on one small people who had done nothing wrong. And that little people cried out to God — and out of their crying, like a tiny spring, came a great river; and the sun came up; and the low were lifted high, and swallowed up the mighty. Mordecai woke up and could not make head or tail of it. He kept it in his heart and thought about it all day. And not long after, sitting quietly in the palace courtyard, he happened to overhear two of the king’s own guards plotting to kill the king. So he reported it, and the plot was stopped — and somebody wrote it down in the royal record book, and then everybody forgot about it.

Now the king of Persia was Artaxerxes, and he liked to give parties. One year he gave one that lasted a hundred and eighty days, and then another one for six days more, in the palace garden: white linen hung on silver rings, couches of gold and silver on a floor of green stone and mother-of-pearl, roses strewn everywhere, and wine served in golden cups, no two of them alike. And on the seventh day, when the king was merry with wine, he sent his servants to fetch Queen Vashti, to parade her in front of all his guests because she was beautiful. And Vashti said no. The king was humiliated and furious, and his advisers were worse than he was. If the queen can say no to the king, they told him, then every wife in Persia will hear about it by Thursday. So a law was written that could never be unwritten: Vashti was never to come before the king again, and her place was to be given to somebody else. And when his anger cooled, the king was lonely. So his servants suggested a search: bring the loveliest young women in the empire to the palace, and let the king choose a new queen.

Mordecai had a cousin he had brought up as his own daughter, because her mother and father were dead. Her name was Esther, and she was beautiful — and she was one of the girls taken into the palace. And Mordecai told her one thing before she went: do not tell them you are a Jew. So she did not. And every single day, all the months she was in there, an ordinary man from the palace offices walked up and down outside the courtyard of the women’s house, trying to find out how she was getting on. And out of all of them, the king loved Esther. He set the queen’s crown on her head and made a great feast for her, and gave presents to the whole empire — and he had no idea who she was.

And now the man who makes the trouble. His name was Haman, and the king promoted him above everybody else and ordered the whole court to bow down to him whenever he passed. And everybody did — except one man sitting at the gate, who would not bow to anybody but God. Day after day the officials asked Mordecai why he would not just do it like everyone else, and day after day he would not, and at last they told Haman — and they told him that Mordecai was a Jew. And Haman was so angry that killing Mordecai was not enough for him. He decided to kill every Jew in the empire. So he cast lots — little marked stones, thrown like dice — to pick the day, and the lot fell on the thirteenth of the month of Adar. And then he went to the king and said, “There is a certain people scattered about your kingdom. Their laws are different from everybody else’s, and they do not keep the king’s laws, and it does the king no good to leave them alone. If it please the king, let it be written that they are to be destroyed — and I will pay a fortune into your treasury for the trouble.” He never says who they are. And the king never asks. He simply pulled the signet ring off his own finger — the ring that stamped a law and made it real — and handed it across the table and said, “Keep your money. Do with them whatever you like.” So the letters went out to a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, each in its own language, sealed with the king’s own ring: on one day, the thirteenth of Adar, kill them all — men, women and children — and take their things. And then the king and Haman sat down to drink together. But the city of Susa was in an uproar.

When Mordecai heard, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and poured ashes over his head, and went out through the middle of the city crying at the top of his voice, “A people that has done nothing wrong is being wiped out!” And all over the empire, wherever the letters were posted, there was weeping and fasting and people sitting on the ground. Inside the palace, Esther knew nothing about it — until her maids came and told her that Mordecai was outside the gate in sackcloth. She sent him proper clothes; he sent them back. So she sent a servant to ask what was happening. And Mordecai sent back the whole story, and a copy of the death warrant, and a message: go in to the king and beg him for your people. And Esther sent back the thing everybody in that palace knew: “Everyone knows the law. Any man or woman who goes in to the king in the inner court without being called is put to death — unless the king holds out his golden staff. And the king has not called for me for thirty days.” And Mordecai sent back the words he is remembered for: “Do not imagine that you of all the Jews will escape, just because you live in the king’s house. If you keep quiet at a time like this, then help will come to the Jews from somewhere else — but you and your father’s family will be lost. And who knows whether it was for a moment exactly like this one that you were made queen?”

And Esther, who was young, and frightened, and quite alone, sent this answer back: “Go and gather all the Jews in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days and three nights. My maids and I will fast the same. And then I will go in to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I die, I die.” And Mordecai went and did everything she said. And Mordecai prayed all that night: “Lord, King who holds power over everything — you know it was not pride that made me refuse to bow to that man. I would have kissed the soles of his feet gladly, if it would have kept Israel safe. I would not do it because I will not put the glory of a man above the glory of God. And now, Lord God, spare your people.” And Esther took off her royal clothes and put on mourning clothes, and covered her head with ashes instead of perfume, and prayed for three days: “My Lord, you alone are our King. Help me — I am all alone, and I have nobody to help me but you, and my danger is in my own hand. Give me courage, and put the right words in my mouth when I stand in front of the lion. Rescue us by your hand — and help me, because I am alone, and I have nobody but you.”